Do You Know What Grade Of Beef Taco Bell Uses? Do They? Does Anyone?

By cwaltersMay 8, 2008

A reader sent us the contents of a Better Business Bureau complaint filed against Taco Bell. It describes how a customer tried repeatedly to find out what grade beef Taco Bell uses in its food, and how nobody at the company was able or willing to provide an answer. Not surprisingly, the BBB complaint also went unanswered. Let’s just hope they’re not sourcing their beef from forklift cattle, which is like downer cattle but has odd prong-shaped bruises on the side.

Here’s the actual BBB complain that went unanswered by Taco Bell:

About 3 weeks ago i called the 800# asking what grade of beef they use. All they could tell me was usda approved. I called 4 times and got the same, twice i left my # and was told a nutritionalist would call me back….no call ever came. I next e mailed corp with the same question. I was answered by a Sandy Shakelford telline me:I have located a phone number contact in which you can inquire about our meat. Taco Bell Corporation 949-863-4500 and ask for the QA Department. I called a total of three times first got a prompt telling me to put in MY voice mail # to get my messages. Next i was transfered to a recording telling of bad cheese both plain and mixed and to throw them out and call in for a credit. Third was disconected. 4th i got a voice mailbox in the Quality control dept. i think his name was Steve…Again i left my question and # and again no call back. On Feb 27 i e mailed Sandy telling her what my phone experiance was and had not got an answer to my question…That was 10 days ago and again no contact from Sandy nor Taco Bell. Side note the web sight says contact us call 1800 TACO BELL when its actually 800 TACO BEL….The companys resistance to answer my question tells me what i was told by a friend that worked there that they use poor yet usda approved beef could be true.

How is Beef Inspected?
Inspection is mandatory; grading is voluntary, and a plant pays to have its meat graded. USDA-graded beef sold at the retail level is Prime, Choice, and Select. Lower grades (Standard, Commercial, Utility, Cutter, and Canner) are mainly ground or used in processed meat products. Retail stores may use other terms which must be different from USDA grades.

USDA grading is a lot more important for whole cuts of meat, like steaks, than it is for ground beef. Bear in mind, too, that one of the primary grading criteria is the amount of fat in the beef, so a “higher” grade isn’t necessarily desirable for meat that’s being ground up. And finally, as Bohemian pointed out, grading is entirely voluntary (restaurants like to be able to advertise that their meat is “Prime” or “Choice”, but if you’re not going to advertise the grade, it’s a waste of money), so it’s a near-certainty that Taco Bell doesn’t bother to have their meat graded.

The grade is simply based on the amount of intramuscle fat and marbling distribution in the meat. The higher the grade, the more intramuscle fat, and the greater the marbling. Both of these affect the amount of flavor the cooked meat will have. Steaks should be USDA Prime or USDA Choice. The meat that Taco Bell uses is probably USAD Commercial. However, this does not mean that the meat is less healthy than better grades, it simply means the meat has less fat and less marbling.

Taco Bell mixes its meat into a sauce that gives it flavor. What would be the point of using a fattier cut of beef if you are simply going to pour it into sauce?

As long as Taco Bell uses USDA graded beef, regardless of the grade it receives, I’m happy.

As long as Taco Bell uses USDA graded beef, regardless of the grade it receives, I’m happy.

Just to clarify, you probably mean USDA approved. Most beef that would receive a grade below “select” is never actually graded to begin with; nobody’s ever going to advertise that their beef is “commercial”-grade, so it’s not worth the money to have it graded.

It’s definitely Grade D, whatever that means. I actually caught a glimpse of a taco bell employee taking out the trash when the store closed. He had bags of cans that said “Grade D” beef. No brand name no nothing!

The grading scale is a joke. If you don’t know the scale, all top 3 meats sound amazing. Joe Blow sees ‘USDA Select’ at walmart, has a party in his pants, buys it, has no idea there are 2 levels above it. Should make it easier.

I found this site from Texas A&M where they say one of the measurements the USDA uses is the age of the carcass. That is graded on a letter scale, with Grade D indicating an animal that was 72-96 months old at slaughter, and grade E is greater than 96 months.

The older the cow, the tougher the meat will be, so it’s no surprise that these animals end up as ground beef.

Still, it’s nothing to do with the safety of the meat, just how tender it is (and frankly, using Prime beef for ground meat would be a waste).

@Consumer9: I find it cute when individuals think that e-mailing a global corporation with a threat to discontinue visiting when they receive, on average, less than $5 per customer is supposed to scare the shit out of them.

Let me get this straight…. you are comparing US slaughterhouse conditions to mexican ones? LOL! I’ll take my chances with US slaughterhouse conditions thankyou very much! Because no matter how bad the US ones are…. the mexican ones MUST be worse!

The raw ground beef from which is found to be contaminated with e-coli a/k/a cow shit and can’t be sold as is or you will get sick and possibly die is sent to another processing plant for cooked meat only. That meat is then presumably subjected to high heat to try and kill the bacteria and then it is shipped off to the dog food plant and Taco Bell. And if they screw up, you have an outbreak and recall.

And what is up with the recording to throw away “bad cheese”. What bad cheese. Were they going to tell anyone about that or only those who call that number get this information. They do sell packaged Taco Bell cheese in the supermarkets. It would be nice if people knew what cheese was bad.

And USDA inspected means the same as FDA approved. Absolutely nothing. Actually it means that if enough people get sick and die we will investigate … maybe… and issue a recall …maybe.

I am a bit of an extremist but I have had food poisoning and I will tell you death is welcome. It is like living in hell. No flu or any non chronic illness that you would regularly experience comes close.

Here is a link to some info about beef grading and what it means. The prime, select etc. refer to the tenderness and fat content and the letter grades refer to the age of the beef with A being the youngest.

It sucks that Taco Bell wasn’t very helpful or good at answering phone calls.

However… who cares what grade beef it is when it’s ground beef? Of course you use the lower grade beef for grinding – that’s because no one will be able to tell whether or not the meat was tender once it’s been completely decimated.

I’ve eaten Taco Bell a few times and back in college it used to be okay, but now I usually get about halfway through and get so disgusted I can’t finish. I can’t put my finger on it but there is something about it that makes me nauseous after a few bites. I would have to be starving with no other options to choke down Taco Bell these days.

@forgottenpassword: Well, the conventional wisdom is that food safety standards in Mexico, all things being equal, are worse than in the US, and it’s my understanding that sanitary and safety standards in US meatpacking plants have improved since Fast Food Nation came out.

Buuuut, the FDA is overextended and underfunded, and I’m not sure if its oversight has any teeth, and clearly, plenty of tainted meat has left US packing plants. Plus, meat’s nation of origin is simply irrelevant if you factor in the different types of farms and plants. A mega-plant that ships out frozen patties is probably going to have sketchier meat, than say, a butcher who picks his own meats and has a hand grinder.

I can only assume the OP mistakenly thinks that the grading system is a measure of health safety. Otherwise, I can’t really see anyone going through all this effort just to figure out what the fat/taste content of the ground beef is. You could find out about either of those easier just by looking at the nutritional information or actually taking a bite. It’s not even necessary you swallow. Just chew a few times.

Having worked at Taco Bell for a year not too long ago, I’d be much more concerned about the way the meat is heated than what the quality is.

The various kinds of meat served at Taco Bell basically come frozen in sealed plastic bags and is submerged for around 30 minutes in a machine that keeps water hot in order to heat the meat (and nacho cheese) to serving temperature (it is then placed in a metal pan on a steam table for use in assembling various menu items). The store I worked at never cleaned out the water machine (they just changed the water once a week), so the inside of the machine was completely coated with a layer of gunk from occasional bags that would get punctured before or while heating in the machine. I was one of the few employees at the store who would immediately throw away entire bags of meat that had become punctured, exposing the meat to the filthy water, as I found it personally disgusting.

I also wonder if the grade of plastic used for the meat is safe for exposure to hot water, as I’ve read that some aren’t.

Ground meat is not “graded” like whole muscle cut meat is. So long as it comes from an inspected facility, either USDA or a State Inspected facility, it is permitted for consumption. What is required is the percentage fat/lean ratio. This is at least true on retail ground co-mingled. It may not be required on non-retail co-mingled.

@Corydon:
If the age of the cow is what gives it a lower letter grade than the lower the letter grade, the higher the risk of the cow or steer having mad cow disease.
It’s the oldest cattle that have & spread it, plus that they use mechanical separation to remove all the meat from the bones also means the possibility of spinal tissue in the ground beef.
It’s in the brain & spinal tissue where the prions that cause mad cow or Creutzfeldt Jakob disease reside.

@spinachdip: … and it’s my understanding that sanitary and safety standards in US meatpacking plants have improved since Fast Food Nation came out.

I am not so sure about that. There have been 33 million pounds of e-coli tainted meat recalled in 2007. Compare that to 156,235 pounds in 2006. Something is going on that is causing this rise in contaminated meat. You have young children who ate the meat with kidney failure destined for a lifetime of dialysis and certain early death. A 69 cent taco isn’t worth that.

NOTHING WAS MARKED GRADE XYZBBQOMFGWTF. It just said “ground beef”. I do remember someone who worked there saying something about a ‘filler’ (oatmeal/soy were frequently spoken of) but no one ever confirmed/denied.

The steak is real steak, just low grade/quality, but still approved.

As far as quality goes, everything is pretty fresh/good quality, except the meat was frozen (precooked) in bags (and the meat was heated/recooked in said bags). The water from said boilers were rarely cleaned, and sometimes there would be holes in the bags of meat to be boiled (shipping/handling/opening?) and the gross nasty water would get into the meat.

I threw out the meat that had been infiltrated by the gross nasty water, and I was yelled at. I never had meat duty again.

WTF – raise your hand if you thought Taco Bell was selling high quality beef at .69 for a taco. Now those of you that raised your hand, please take the walk of shame. Of course they use the cheapest beef (if you can call it that) they can find. It’s the only way they could sell you that combo meal for $2.99 and still be in business.

One time in highschool (when I was an avid taco bell eater), we went to Taco Bell after a track meet. I was famished and ordered quite a bit.

The store was out of hot sauce, and I found that I could barely stomach their food un-slathered in multiple packets of sauce. Apparently, I was just a fan of their sauce, and didn’t have a clue as to what their food ‘tasted’ like. Pretty much stopped eating there after that.

@youbastid: Where to begin? This was 1991, so things may have changed. For starters, I’m not surprised about the USDA meat lawsuit. The meat is positively unidentifiable. And the fact that TB refuses to name it’s contents is quite alarming.

Next, it comes in large plastic bags, just ready to be “cooked”. By cooked, I mean poured into steam/hot water heated chafing dishes. Oftentimes we would find casings or live bugs in the bag. We were told to just pick them out.

Now lets talk about the tacos… things like the sour cream or cheese (at that time) didn’t need to be refrigerated for some strange reason. Plus, sour cream caulking gun was rarely, if ever, washed. Once empty we would load it up with more Sour Cream. So towards the end could be 4 week old never refrigerated sour cream with the new near the top. You might get an urge to clean the nozzle off with rag. But the only rags we had were table rags. I got written off because I dared to clean out the gun with clean paper towels. My manager was peeved because I didn’t use a dish rag, and my protestation that that rag had been wiping down counters fell on deaf ears.

I’ve worked in several restaurants, and TB was BY FAR the dirtiest, most unsanitary one of them all.

Guess you didn’t finish logic class. Just because they recalled more tainted meat doesn’t mean there was more tainted meat. It just means they were paying attention more.

And another thing, ground beef with e-coli isn’t tainted meat. E-coli lives in the intestine, it helps with digestion. If you grind up an entire animal, sometimes intestines are part of “the entire animal”, so the e-coli gets spread throughout. That’s why you’re supposed to cook ground meats to a certain temperature.

Lastly, who goes looking for the quality of the meat at Taco Bell? Tacos are 79 cents. Figure it out yourself, Sherlock.

Grade E? That’s not a “failing grade” like a school report card – it describes only the animal’s age. Grade E beef comes from animals over 8 years old (picture, if you will, that ‘Bossy’ had a long and well-cared-for life). The meat might be very tough served as a steak, but quite adequate as ground beef.

Comment on Do You Know What Grade Of Beef Taco Bell Uses? Do They? Does Anyone?

Used to work at BPI, a supplier to Wendy’s, McDonald’s, and Taco Bell.
What BPI does is take the scraps from packing plants, and refine the beef
off of them. They wind up with a product that is 98% lean beef. This
allows the fast food chain to take lower grade ground beef, 85% or so, and
add the BPI product to boost it’s flavor and quality. The BPI beef is
cheap, but it really is great quality.

I worked at Taco Bell, 1995-1996. The beef came in as a slush in a sealed plastic bag, pre-seasoned. At least the “Taco Bell” brand beef did. We heated the bags in a deep fat fryer that had water in it instead of oil.

We never “cooked” anything at that resturaunt. Everything was premade or powdered. Beans were dehydrated and reconstituted.

The only thing fried in he store were the taco salad shells and the cinnimon desert crisps. They did that in the morning and had the frier turned off before we opened for business.

That place was grease free and clean. You could eat off the floors there. not like “Jack in the Box” where you took your life in your hands eating there.

also, i stopped eating the ground beef there when i was on the ‘steam line’ [hot food prep] and poured out a ‘fresh’ bag of ground beef into the pan and found a nearly intact [but hairless, fortunately] cow’s ear

I should note that Taco Bell is one of the fast food joints I have never became sick from eating at. About a decade ago, I would consistently get sick from eating at Burger King. The same holds true for Wendy’s in recent years. I do not eat at either place.

Here is a fact for ya. You can eat almost anything! Even poisons in small amounts. Your body processes protein without concerns of it’s origin. I grew up in a country home. After watching my parents both cook and eat Souse Meat (aka head cheese [en.wikipedia.org] ) I think you can eat anything. I have eaten quiet a long list of animals and animal parts.

This is ridiculous. This jackass is eating at Taco Bell. He obviously doesn’t have that “descerning of a pallet” anyway. Its a 1$ for a 1/2lb. What quality do you really think you are getting for that price.

@oncewascool: An even longer list when you consider that you’re just not told what goes into most meats and foods, processed or not, because it doesn’t matter (unless you need Kosher). People make assumptions that it’s some sort of pure meat, like it’s an element in the periodic table, completely forgetting the fact that a living creature, which is composed of all manner of nasty, was ground up for their tacos. I love it when people get grossed out seeing animals eat raw entrails, and I think, “that was my hamburger yesterday.”

@forgottenpassword: Ive eaten from several roadside taco stands in Mexico with no problems. Fast food places on the other hand… not so lucky. It’s not the quality of the meat, it’s how the meat is handled. Since taco stands in Mexico don’t have the best refrigeration systems, they keep just enough on hand and have a high turnover. I’ll take a taco stand or taco truck over T-Bell any day.

Grade B,C,D,and E meat is all fine to eat. The further down the alphabet the older the cow. In fact, in Spain, the best meat comes from older cows that have worked all of their lives. Unfortunately, cows here are just as lazy as many people eating them. It’s not like Grade E meat is dropped on the slaughter house floor and mixed with bleach or anything…

I actually worked at taco bell for a little while. The beef that they use for most of their items comes in bags and is heated up in hot water. Very clearly marked on every bag was Grade B Beef. It ain’t Grade a but i still loves me some taco bell.

It’s amazing to see how many people are so ignorant. Ignorance itself I don’t have a problem with, but self-righteous ignorance rubs me the wrong way.

As other people have stated, there is no “Grade D.” There are maturity classifications that use the letters A, B, C, D, and E, but they merely refer to the age of the animal. Unless you plan on only eating ground veal for your tacos, you sure as heck don’t want “A” meat. Regarding the actual QUALITY, there has never been any sort of letter-grading system in the United States for the quality of safety of meat, and everything is classified via the well-known Prime/Choice/Select/etc system.

There is no “Grade D but edible,” and if you repeat that BS to make yourself seem superior for being a vegetarian or for not eating at Taco Bell, you can kindly go suck on a lemon.

One small nitpick. The USDA does use one and only one ‘letter’ grade, and that’s “A”, for “Approved for human consumption” (which is then broken down into Prime, Choice, Select, Standard, Commercial, Utility, Cutter, and Canner.) Anything less is declared unfit for human consumption and does not get graded. Taco Bell, for their steak, uses USDA Grade A Standard in their steak products, Grade A Commercial in their ground beef products. Not the best, but better than McDonald’s (which uses 100% pure ground beef, Utility grade.)

I worked at Pizza Hut in 1997 when Yum Brands was called Tricon (KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell). We got a bag of Taco Bell beef off the truck one day to make Taco Pizzas (for ourselves). Stamped on the bag…. Grade D.

I was told by a Taco Bell manager they mix ground oatmeal with the ground beef to bulk it up. I always thought this actually made thier ground beef slightly healthier than most other fast food beef products.

I’ve heard that they actually use Grade E. A friend of mine owns a slaughterhouse and he knows the different grades inside and out. He said that he can tell it’s below a D. The sad thing, is that’s what they feed our soldiers :(

Well to tell first there would need to actually be some beef in my taco! Every time I go there I am disappointed with the filling and have to pull out a magnifying glass to see where some trace amounts of meat may or may not have been. Looks NOTHING like the picture and bet there is not even and ounce in them.

@Lambasted: When I was a freshman, there was a Taco Bell on the first floor of my dorm, and they accepted the student meal plans! I had very irregular bathroom habits for about a semester. (They did away with the Bell my 2nd year in favor of healthier alternatives)

They use cutter beef. It’s what’s left over after they get done cutting steaks and prime cuts. It’s the second to the lowest grade of beef–just above canner. No tendons or organ meats or anything, but plenty of fat. Mostly fat, actually. It has either no flavor or a nasty flavor, so they have to season the heck out of it in order to make it edible. The reason Taco Bell won’t say what “grade” it is is because it’s not graded. The USDA doesn’t “grade” meat except by special request. All they do is inspect the facility where it’s processed to make sure everything is clean and up to code. Here are the details, via Snopes:

Taco Bell uses a mix of varous extenders and fillers and a poor grade of beef. It is probably a formulation that is used throughout the entire fast-food industry. Don’t you think it is the case that McDonald’s, Burger King, White Castle, Wendy’s, and Taco Bell all use the same mix? So, what is the typical ratio of extenders/fillers to beef? Why can’t we be told? Everybody knows that the beef is adulterated. What we are being told is that the beef is 100% beef. Unfortunately, beef is not the only thing that is present.